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Time and tide waits for no-one

When I was a child, I never knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. Sometimes I thought – and this is rather maudlin – that this was a sign that I would die young.

Luckily, I did not die young. But my lack of direction did mean that I drifted through a few (quite a few) jobs before stumbling into a career with a global brand. Then, I was locked in. The career path was highly structured and I liked structure and so I followed it.

Is this ringing any bells?

I was so locked into work, career-progression, working even harder just to stand still, that I missed what was going on outside the corporate bubble I had created.

At the fifteen year mark, I started to wake up and as I woke, I fell out of love with my career. I began to see that there could be more to my life, in fact that there needed to be more AND that I owed it to myself to find more.

… ringing any bells?

Because I tend not to do anything by halves, I was an extreme case. This also meant that I was unprepared for the world outside corporate life – no CV, no looking at job ads, no idea that there were other ways to earn a living, but more significantly, no idea that actually I could get out. The company I worked for was a global restaurant brand, and it was said I had ketchup running through my veins.

Then an amazing thing happened.

I lost my job.

Perhaps, using the stuff I was learning about The Law of Attraction, I manifest this? I don’t know, but if I did then it was the best day’s work I’d done for a long time.

It is now 10 years on and I’d like to share the 3 biggest lessons I’ve learned about creating a new chapter in your life:

… by the way, I did not always do this learning the easy way …

  1. To move forward, start with the end in mind
  2. You know more than you think you know
  3. You need to unlearn some things you believe to be true

Begin with the end in mind

In my first post, I listed the 3 biggest lessons I learned about creating a new chapter in my life. For me, the first of these was begin with the end in mind. I have borrowed these words from Stephen R Covey’s definitive work “The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People”.

Begin with the end in mind is based on the principle that everything is created twice. First, there is a mental creation. Second, there is a physical creation.

For Covey, “Begin with the end in mind” is habit two of seven. For me, it jumps to Number 1 – let me tell you why:

Towards the end of my corporate career (and I now believe that the timing was very significant), I was introduced to “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne. If you haven’t read the book, listened to the recording or seen the film, then I have to tell you that The Secret is a page-turner …

In summary, Byrne identifies three lessons:

1. The Law Of Attraction is one of the most prevalent Laws in the world.

2. In order to usefully utilise The Law Of Attraction, you need to think about what you want rather than about what you don’t want.

3. The Law Of Attraction has three steps – asking, believing and receiving.

It is the POWER of The Law Of Attraction that gives begin with the end in mind top billing for me.

Here is how it’s power revealed itself to me. I’ve always been a positive kinda gal. But, one thing that used to to throw my day out was over-sleeping when I was caring for my Mum. This was not unusual as Mum would turn night into day and finally settle just a few hours before I was to get up. My pattern then was, wake up, drag myself out of bed, decide my day was doomed and live a day that plunged from disaster to disaster.

Finally, the penny dropped … I was having a rubbish day because I told myself I’d have a rubbish day …

So now as I leap out of bed each day – whatever time I wake up – I create a picture of success as to how the day will unfold.

And you know what, life is pretty darn good …

Then, another penny dropped. If I can create a day by design, I CAN CREATE A LIFE BY DESIGN. So, begin with the end in mind has to be my Number 1.

There are a couple of tools I use for life-designing. One is my vision board and one is writing about my perfect day as an end of year ritual.

If you would like to find out how I use these tools with my Team to help them develop lives they love living, then please drop me a comment below.